The 39 Steps… in Texas

Galveston, oh Galveston… yes the Glen Campbell earworm really stuck! Actually an island so a big daunting bridge to drive over to get there. We parked up at the marina, which is near all the waterside properties built on reclaimed land so there’s canals between for the owners boats. From there it was an easy uber into downtown for an explore. Clearly very much a tourist town with its pier and fairground, there were plenty of shops selling T-shirts in garish colours with slogans on them, some inappropriate to us… some people clearly have socially acceptable ‘blind spots’. Settled in the early 1800’s it became a major player in trade through the port and for immigration. In 1900 however, it was hit by a devastating hurricane, eventually rebuilding into a tourist destination. It was known as the Sin City of the Gulf due to its types of popular establishments! He didn’t sing about that did he!

Getting away from all that however, Galveston is packed with some fabulous architecture and it’s a wonderful place to wander. Downtown, lots of coffee shops and restaurants catering to visitors but there’s a superb historic district with lots of eclectic buildings that had survived the worst of the weather events. Wonderful street art, every town here loves a mural or two! There’s lots of large windowed cast iron buildings with fancy frontages that reflected the mercantile days of the past, while in the historic district, lots of French colonial style properties, all very different. After walking all afternoon we found a great bar, no surprise there eh, with a singer who could hit the Beatles notes for once, he was really good! Got chatting to a right wing Texan at the bar who, even though he had views we didn’t concur with, which is fine, brought us a couple of Rye’s to sample. Different opinions don’t mean bad people.

Before moving on we had a brief chat with a lady who told us she had voted for ‘M.A.G.A. man’ who said “I truly believe God sent him to save us”…. Moving on, to a different part of the island, to the State Park, it was very different. Across the water, the skyline was continual industry. Arriving there we bumped into a couple we’d met before, more chatting. Before driving there, we took in the beachfront hotels, casino’s and bars and to be fair, a lovely long white beach. At the State Park there are numerous walks, some a tad muddy after all the rain but whats the harm in a bit of mud… nothing laundry can’t sort out. What was pretty gross was the dead fish just left rotting after the storm. Back at the campsite we had a wander down to the beach for a lovely sunset. The following morning, a beach boardwalk with White Tailed Hawks dropping from the sky for food was fun and then another conversation with folks from Wimberley (Texas Hill Country) who’d spotted our number plate… an hour or so later, we hit the road. Sometimes we just spend our days chatting, and that’s not with each other!

At the north end of the island we spotted a ginormous cruise ship docked in port and were glad we’d chosen a quiet day to explore. We caught a smaller version, a ferry, that took us across the water to continue our costal hug North East via the Bolivar Peninsula. Lots more stilt houses but not as smart as on Galveston, lots of RV ‘Resorts’ and also, something we’d not seen before, RV’s as homes sitting beneath their own decks and attached to other makeshift buildings. Eventually we arrived at Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge, a super birding and alligator spot that should also be mentioned for its mosquito’s (they miss that bit out on the info). Highlight for us was spotting a Bittern, yeah I know, dullsville…. From there an overnight stop behind a motel but not before passing ‘Margaritaville RV Resort’… Jimmy Buffet gets everywhere and no we are not Parrot Heads…. (you may need to google that!)

Leaving Winnie, no, not of The Pooh, we met an Austrian couple, on a 5 year trip in a fab Overlander at the ‘gas’ station…. and it was a gas! Over an hour later we were still chatting, each of our vehicles either side of the pump, several people taking photos of us. Eventually we were asked to leave before the gas station became a YouTube sensation… We didn’t think to take pics ourselves, doh! Of course it started to rain as we continued along to camp near Village Creek State Park where we thought we’d get washed away. Eventually the following day it let up and we headed out to Big Thicket National Reserve and The Kirby Nature Trail. Seems odd to name such a quiet and tranquil place after a concrete jungle in Liverpool but hey?! (Kirkby 😉 )It was really quiet, we were on our own but the numerous woodpeckers were out and at it, knocking away on the wood. Three different species spotted and logged in his little book 🙂 Getting back to the van, we found two Danish, not pastries, having a mooch around it… so we ended up chatting with them too!

We know it seems that we have the gift of the gab but we were late leaving (3 hours late…) having met a British couple who’d moved to the US 25+ years ago and lived at Cape Cod, nice! Really interesting talking to them about all kinds of stuff, and might possibly see them again somewhere as they are exploring too. So, that was it, Texas done for now and off we headed into Louisiana for some real soul.

So in terms of our 39 days in Texas and what we’ve made of the vast state, 10 times the size of Ireland, it has some fabulous spots to visit. Big Bend National Park and Brazos Bend being highlights for us along with numerous state parks along the way. We loved the vitality of Austin too and how different it was to Hill Country with its guns and big ego trucks with flags on them. Yes, Texas is diverse in many ways which was superb. You can’t knock it, even if you are a woodpecker!

Culturally it’s different to other parts of the US so far, only one native Texan we spoke to wasn’t talking the “our taxes are spent on migrants from across the border rather than our own people” talk, which we struggled with on a humanitarian level, but reflecting, that whole ‘migrants and taxes’ matter was so prevalent and politicked in our shameful Brexit vote that who are we to judge? If we didn’t have a big stretch of water between us and mainland Europe, would the UK commentary be so much different? These two local ‘news’ articles can be easily believed if that’s the inclination.

What was different however was the aggression and sentiment towards people coming North, heavily armed militia groups going to the border, razor wire in the Rio Grande, Texas guards preventing Border Patrol agents from even getting to the border to do their job. There’s even talk of another civil war! That’s the unpalatable bit. Again though, the first borders of the EU like Hungary and Bulgaria are putting fences and walls up. It’s a global issue but at least the EU is working collectively to try and find solutions other than the ‘United’ States who use the issue and the immigrants as pawns for political gain and seem to have forgotten that money shouldn’t trump humanity.

Anyhow, we travel and learn and try to understand so all of this is just saying what we see. Don’t get us started on the shambolic political system that doesn’t actually seem democratic and where the politicians masquerade as being there for the people. A lot of people have ‘explained’ it to us and we’ve seen enough poverty and appalling living conditions to last a lifetime.